Headless Bodies Hold Secrets to Pacific Migration

Archaeologists working on the Pacific islands of Vanuatu
have found the region's oldest cemetery,
and it's filled with a slew of headless bodies.

The peculiar 3,000-year-old skeletons belong to the Lapita people, the earliest
known inhabitants of the Pacific
Islands. Their DNA could shed light on how the many remote island specks
surrounding Vanuatu were colonized, the researchers say.

"Both Vanuatu and Western Polynesia were first
settled by the Lapita culture but their populations are somewhat different
genetically and this has not yet been explained," said dig leader Matthew
Spriggs, an archaeologist
with the Australian National University.

The Vanuatu
burials--which include mismatching bodies and heads of individuals from different
corners of the Pacific Islands--could help explain how everyone eventually
ended up where they did, he said.

Heads removed after death

A total of 70 headless bodies, along with seven skulls
and some rare pots, have been found at the site in Vanuatu over several dig
seasons. The work was led by Spriggs, Stuart Bedford of the Australian National
University and Ralph Regenvanu of the Vanuatu National Museum.

Thirty-five bodies, buried in various manners, were discovered just recently.

But rather than a ritual
sacrifice or some other gruesome custom that might explain the separated
heads and bodies, the deceased were all laid to rest initially with their
skulls firmly attached, Spriggs said.

The head was believed to be the seat of
the soul and so was often dug up after burial when the flesh had rotted away
and kept either in skull shrines or in the house as a treasured memento of the
person," he told LiveScience.

Curiously, though, none of the skulls
belonged to the bodies with which they were buried, tests showed.

"Some curated heads, shiny through handling, had been placed on the chest
of one individual some time after his burial--they may have been his
descendants," said Spriggs. "Needless to say, he had no head
either."

Voyagers from across the sea?

Many skulls and bodies
that were found might even have belonged to individuals from islands other than
Vanuatu, according to the preliminary DNA
testing.

"At present we don't have enough background data to enable us to say where
someone came from in the Pacific, only that they didn't come from the island
where they were found," Spriggs said. "Currently, 4 of about 18
individuals tested so far show signs of having been born elsewhere."

Those DNA results and more on the way mean that scientists could soon
understand just how the Lapita people got to Vanuatu and what route they
took from there on to populate
islands like Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. Many historians believe they originally
made the journey from Southeast Asia, but that is in dispute.

It's a connect-the-dots picture that gets clearer with every new Lapita
specimen that is found and tested, Spriggs said.

"We are interested to know whether the
DNA (that) we might be able to extract from the skeletons matches common
Polynesian DNA patterns or is more like that of the people of Vanuatu
today," said Spriggs.

World
Trivia

View
of Easter Island Disaster All Wrong, Researchers Say

Ancient
People Followed 'Kelp Highway' to America, Researcher Says

Tiny
Island Was Violent Microcosm of World Strife

All About DNA

Author Bio

Heather Whipps,

Heather Whipps writes about history, anthropology and health for Live Science. She received her Diploma of College Studies in Social Sciences from John Abbott College and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from McGill University, both in Quebec. She has hiked with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and is an avid athlete and watcher of sports, particularly her favorite ice hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens. Oh yeah, she hates papaya.